


Degenerate

by thelongcon (rainer76)



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Kink, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-07
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-03 17:48:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1753433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/thelongcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If he conjures Rick in his inner mind, if he adds a few years of mileage, staggers him forward into an older age, Joe is what he discovers at the end, what he imagines Rick would look like – in fifteen, twenty years - if he’s fortunate enough to have lived that long; if he’s not dead at the prison, bones gnawed on, the Governor’s bullet scored through his blue eyes. Joe has a bad yen for black shirts with roses adorned on the print.  Joe watches Daryl out of the periphery of his vision, hovering on the edges of Daryl’s awareness with a look of calculation – and Daryl can remember the same expression from Atlanta, except Rick wore it then</p>
            </blockquote>





	Degenerate

DEGENERATE: Adjective: having lost the physical, mental, or moral qualities considered normal

 

 

Joe’s beard has already turned grey, his hair the same, an off coloured ash that kicks out at the back, curls at his nape and tangles away in sweaty ringlets; he’s the same height as Rick, broader and older, eyes a hazel green.  The similarity is found in the unruly mess - the curl of their hair - the assertiveness they project that’s thicker than a woollen blanket, and Daryl finds himself turning toward it, seeking it out like a kid left out in the cold too long.  If he conjures Rick in his inner mind, if he adds a few years of mileage, staggers him forward into an older age, Joe is what he discovers at the end, what he imagines Rick would look like – in fifteen, twenty years - if he’s fortunate enough to have lived that long; if he’s not dead at the prison, bones gnawed on, the Governor’s bullet scored through his blue eyes. Joe has a bad yen for black shirts with roses adorned on the print.  Joe watches Daryl out of the periphery of his vision, hovering on the edges of Daryl’s awareness with a look of calculation – and Daryl can remember the same expression from Atlanta, except Rick wore it then – it makes Daryl’s skin prickle, weight rolling onto the balls of his feet; it’s a lodestone of pale reminders and it slows Daryl’s gait, encourages him to keep apace with Joe, ciphering the existence of the others until they don’t register at all. 

 

He’s always been a singular man; contained in his wants or needs; and Daryl needs someone to tell him what to do.   Joe now, Rick before, Merle earlier again, and buried in childhood, locked away in the dark woods and forgotten about in the pale light of day, it was his daddy.  Tell him what to do – and Daryl will see it through – fuck Randall up, cover Rick’s back, take over leadership while his ‘boy’ recovers, tell him not to lie and Daryl will be honest to the point of brutality.

( _Boy_ , he says aloud – to Randall, to Merle, to anyone who cares to listen - _you shoot up my boy?_ Rick he had meant, he’ll assign the lowest term because the reverse is more true - boy could be his king or his north star, boy could be his leader or his daddy, ruler of the roost - you don’t say that shit aloud though so Daryl drops the level of ‘power’; he does it instinctively; self-preservation was ever his earliest lesson).   The truth is, he’s comfortable being a leader when circumstances demand, Daryl won’t hesitate to step up, do what’s necessary, but it’s not his preferred state, he prefers the shadows, balancing on the finer edge, in civilian life he was one misstep away from prison, people would curl their lip and say degenerate when they looked at him, their eyes would brim with contempt.  Truth is, the existence of one doesn’t negate the presence of another, they don’t miraculously cancel each other out but exist side by side, uneasily, they nestle out a space with the understanding there’s a time and place for everything – so Daryl _can_ be the biggest and baddest motherfucker you’ll ever meet, he can stand forehead to forehead with Bob Sookey and stare him into quivering submission – he can (when he trusts someone) be directionless, meek as a lamb, he can be whatever they need him to be.  Tell him what to do and he’ll see it through – tell him to relinquish control and he’ll step into a guard position, Daryl will cover Rick’s life and offer his own in its stead, he knows his own worth.

“How’d you wind up with them?”

His daddy wore country-western attire, elaborate patterns with rose thorns, sometimes he wore black shirts with the ace of spades on the rib-panel, a grinning skull impaled on the tip, and he’d say things like – go on now, you best find a way to please me – he’d paint his sons lips ruby-red, he’d smudge lipstick down the corner of Daryl’s chin, ring his eyes like a raccoon, black with eyeliner, muss up Daryl’s blonde hair until it was spiky and in disarray and turn him about, until they were both confronted by the picture of his momma. His breath would turn heavy, laboured, and before long, his daddy’s face would twist with self-loathing.  He never touched Daryl beyond applying his wife’s make-up, and it always ended with him fetching the belt – Daryl was never quick, or clever enough, to find a way to appease him – flung into an abyss of agony, cast out by his father’s black hate.    Please – I don’t know what to do – tell me what to do. 

A refrain made manifest. 

He can’t say in Joe he found a collision of ghosts, something of an older Rick in appearance, something of his father’s avarice, and those goddamn, awful fucking shirts; he can’t say he never found approval, or acceptance as a kid, or that he’s over thirty and doesn’t know the first thing about love – he knows its not a fairy-tale, or it makes things any better despite what people preach, he knows the majority of people marry because they’re afraid of dying alone, and that’s a shitty motivation too – Daryl’s just as likely to bite the hand of anyone who comes too close. 

After the Claimers, after Terminus, when they’re reunited with Glenn and Carol, Daryl starts to act out.

It starts small, like wormwood, clawing at the surface of his outer demeanour.  It tastes like decay in the back of his throat, like something buried over in a shallow grave and left to rot for decades. 

It’s only ever directed at Rick because Daryl’s always been singular in his approach, even if his approach is pissy.  He can see bafflement in the man’s eyes - every thing we’ve been through, everything we’ve done, and you’re going to let Carol’s ousting, sour between us? - he seems to say. 

Fucking A, Daryl snarls right back.

Where’d this come from? Rick asks on another occasion, eyes narrowed, and Daryl wonders if he’s thinking of Shane, that slow flip from friend to foe, he watches Rick’s hands curl into fists, mounting frustration evident in every white knuckle.  Daryl tilts his head, cocks his hip out, heart banging wildly in his chest. 

If this were history repeating itself then Rick should be counting his losses by now, looking for another lieutenant; Tyreese maybe, or Ford, he’d turn his council, regard, elsewhere – the same way he turned from Shane to Daryl overnight – if this were history repeating itself Daryl could expect a knife between the ribcage any day.  Rick’s all about togetherness – unless he’s shunting someone onto the open road and ditching them, without consulting anyone – he’s all about coming back from the things that have been done, unless you’re Carol, and wasn’t that a peach.  “Tyreese,” Rick tries to say - something about him killing her in a rage, something about Tyreese never being able to work past the grief – the explosion of disharmony Carol’s presence would bring to the prison.

“Ya-huh,” Daryl bites out.  “Because that eventuated, didn’t it, all of that killing fury and then some.”

In truth, Daryl doesn’t know _where_ it’s coming from – he honestly wished he did – he only knows he’s shut down tighter than a Swiss bank since the experience with the Claimers.  Since Joe appeared in his life, an amalgamation of his father’s fashion and Rick’s curls and all of it aged prematurely, Daryl felt nothing but cold rage, every scar line stitched into his flesh flaring like a brand of ice.   “What? Y’all want a wind-up toy to nod along with every call you make?  It was shitty then, and knowing how Tyreese’s reaction played out, it’s even shittier now.”

“You don’t know that.  You don’t know what went down to affect his way of thinking.”

“Same as y’all didn’t know a damn thing when you turfed her out like trash.”

“We’re not talking about this now.  It’s done.”

“Didn’t talk about it then, either.” 

Rick throws a hand up in the air, exasperated; he turns about to face Daryl fully, his jaw gone tight. Daryl shifts, eyes narrowed, swaying on the balls of his feet.  He hasn’t slept in days, not truly, quick naps that morphed into dreams, rose-thorn shirts, the Claimers, Joe: except in the dream he starts to age backwards, wavy grey hair blooming into rich brown, weathered lines erased for a different pattern, he loses the middle-aged bulk and slims into a predatory line, and Rick says with Joe’s voice: Don’t you lie to me, Daryl.

He blinks rapidly, shakes his head to clear the vision.  “Whatever.”   Daryl pulls back, desperate to get away, draw some distance, let the vertigo settle. 

Rick wraps an arm around his forearm and jerks him back.  “No.  You want to do this now, fine, then have at it.”

Daryl at nine, tousled blonde with his mother’s make-up on his face and blue eye-shadow on his eyes had looked fae and otherworldly, his reflection thrown across the room from his mother’s photograph.  He looked like he was caught between worlds; and the sensation of not belonging anywhere has been part and parcel of who Daryl Dixon is, has been, ever since.  He thought with Rick –

With Rick –

\- he thought he found a _home_ with Rick, except he’s fucking it up and Daryl can’t stop, like Merle on a bender he wants to push, he can’t quit until someone resettles the rules.  He knocks Rick’s grip loose, shoves forward, scuffing up the dirt, says low and dangerously.  “Get yer hands off me.” 

He’s done with being man-handled.  Three against one in the dirt and Joe’s voice ringing out - teach him, boys, teach him all the way – or it’s one against a giant in a dirty cabin in the woods, the unleashed power in his daddy’s arm was enough to flay Daryl’s skin open.  Filthy, he’d pant, can’t get anything right you filthy, filthy whore.  Tell me what to do, Daryl would holler; ducking between blows, I’ll do it.  Except he’s not nine any more, and the dark lines smudged under his eyes isn’t paint, he’s over thirty, and Daryl knows exactly what to do.  He cold-cocks Rick across the jaw, hard enough to stagger the man to his knees. 

He’d asked politely for Rick to release him but polite doesn’t always work, and Daryl can throw a hell of a haymaker when properly motivated. 

His head is screaming that he’s gone too far, they’re done, they’ll be done now, and the chasm in his mind says this is it – Rick’s patience has frayed away to mere threads – he doesn’t suffer dissent gladly, he’ll throw you away like Carol or kill you dead like Shane.  Something young inside Daryl trembles – because this is his home he’s tearing down – and the rest of him, the muscle and the bone, the instincts bourn on violence, is ready to strike Rick into the dirt again. And again, if need be.  The presence of one doesn’t negate the existence of another – Daryl can be pissed and scared all at once, he can be yearning for something and shoving it away with force, because what Daryl wants is filthy, and Rick never needs to discover it.

Rick lands on his hands and knees, blood smeared at his mouth like lipstick. They’re threadbare those jeans, worn down with continual use, they slip from his hips tantalizingly, they hug the contours of Rick’s ass, show the dimple at the small of his back, a flash of white skin.  

Daryl feels his body, fae and otherworldly – so often removed, as a reflection in a cold mirror - stir.  Heat floods between his legs.  Daryl steps back, angles his stance to cover it, he hopes the rush of blood south means there’s nothing to spare for his cheeks; he can’t afford to blush now, there’s bigger concerns.  He saw Rick with Tyreese and Daryl wonders if anyone will intervene when it comes to him, or if Rick will finish off what Joe started and beat Daryl to death in a black rage.   “I ain’t your boy,” Daryl grates out.  “Hear me?  I ain’t obliged to follow, or agree, on your say so.”

Rick sits back onto his heels, he wipes the blood off his mouth carelessly, with the back of his hand, and Daryl tracks the slow drag of movement, of skin catching over lips and chin. 

“Oh, yes you are,” Rick says, through bloody teeth.   “You’re mine alright.” On his knees, eyes keen to everything, Rick scans Daryl from the tip of his dirty boots to the flap of his flannel shirt, where his eyes linger over Daryl’s crotch, where he tilts his head and says offhand.  “You want to make this about your daddy?”

Those words slide home like a knife to the gullet, like the cold shards of a smashed mirror. Daryl doesn’t always process things the same way others do but he knows the term ‘seeing red’.  In the end, Rick doesn’t lay a single finger on him, he stays kneeling upright in the dirt, the singular focus of Daryl’s entire world - so it’s Ford, Eugene, and Bob who take Daryl down, tackling him like linebackers, three against one.  Rick watches him struggle and curse from three feet away, he watches Daryl strain and snap while remaining on his own knees. Throughout the scuffle Daryl catches quick glimpses of Rick's expression, his mouth parted and bruised, his knees braced wide in the dirt.

I don’t know why I do the things I do, Merle once said, a half-whisper in a prison cell, but that Officer Friendly of yours?  Sweet Darylina, I’m telling you, he’s cold as ice.

Rick doesn’t need to hurt him, or Rick won’t _allow_ himself to hurt him, or it was never part of the agenda to begin with – he keeps Daryl’s attention fixated until the others are in a position to restrain him.  It’s three against one, leather lashing around his wrists, and Daryl goes from seeing red to going berserk – for a while there, things are a little messy.

 

***

 

“It’s water,” Rick says, an hour later.  He squats beside Daryl, arms still bound and his back to the wall, situated where Ford placed him, in the adjourning room to their latest hideout, sitting in the dark like a scolded kid.

Sour, Daryl rasps.  “Gee, is time-out over already, dad?”

“For now.  Drink.”  Daryl thinks his expression is pretty eloquent, considering the state of his hands. Rick scoffs, instead of untying them and making things simple he settles his weight over Daryl’s thighs and tips the cup upward, poised at his lips.  “Go on.”  It’s either swallow or wear the water and they don’t have much to spare, more tellingly, Daryl’s parched.  “That was a helluva reaction,” Rick notices, speaking softly.  The bruise on his cheek has turned livid, even in the dark Daryl can see the imprint.  Daryl’s sporting more than a few bruises himself but Rick landed none.

Which part, Daryl wants to snap, unhappy with the guilt creeping in, the three against one shit or the daddy remark you pulled? 

He lets the water trickle into the back of his mouth, Daryl holds it there, conscious of the coiled heat in his lap.  Rick isn’t any bigger, smaller across the shoulders if anything, but his weight is solid, grounding, and for this moment in time he’s looking at Daryl the same way Daryl looks toward him, as if nothing else matters, as if he's the only person in the world. Daryl swallows before he chokes on it.

“Good boy,” Rick breathes.  He’s not staring at Daryl through a reflection of cold glass; he’s face to face, a hairsbreadth away.  Heat races through his body at the mindless praise and Daryl blushes, unable to hide it, nowhere to hide and all of his shadows stripped away – it feels like exposed hope and it feels like dread – Rick’s gaze turns wicked sharp, noticing every detail.  His mouth curves faintly.  “Ah,” he says, drawn out and satisfied, like the last move in a chess game. 

Purposefully, Rick sets the cup aside.  He rocks on Daryl’s lap, as if resettling his weight, Rick places one hand on his upper thigh, fingers curving inward, mid-knuckles brushing against Daryl’s groin.  “Did he ever say anything nice, your daddy?”

“Shut up, man.”

“Nothing nice at all?”

“I don’t need nice.”

“Nah.  Not when nasty works just as well.”  Rick rubs a thumb against Daryl’s bottom lip, spreading the last traces of water, not as slick as lipstick, not as tacky as blood.  His kiss is gentle, a shy merging of lips.  There’s a solid wall behind Daryl’s skull, there’s Rick in front of him, _on him,_ mouth inquisitive and turning bold.  “Is this nasty?” Rick whispers.

So far removed from nasty that Daryl doesn’t know what to do with it – the words should make him bristle, lash out against the taint of mockery – but the actions tell a different story, gilded with care.  Rick ends the kiss with his hand wrapped around Daryl’s throat, a loose collar of fingers.  He pulls far enough away that Daryl chases him blind, trying to re-find his tongue and lips, coax out further reactions.  “Oh, you’re mine,” Rick repeats from earlier, more certain, his tone turned lighter.  “And I’m not in the habit of abusing what’s mine.”

Daryl’s hips jerk.  He’s hard, erection straining under the material of the cargo pants, Rick rides the action smoothly, and Daryl’s muddled enough to voice a complaint. “Neglect is abuse,” he groans, helpfully, because oh-my-god he’s trapped under a tease.

Rick smiles, brightly, with no agenda at all. 

“And you’re mouthy.”  Rick feeds him his fingers one at a time, index and middle, the pads resting against Daryl’s tongue and weighting it down.  “Hollow your cheeks for me,” Rick instructs, and when Daryl does, tasting gun-powder and steel, sucking those fingers hard, Rick kisses his forehead, soft as a benediction.  “You’re beautiful.”

He might just come like that, with Rick in his lap and his fingers wet in Daryl’s mouth.

Rick breathes out against his ear, dark with promises.  “Going to take care of you…and it doesn’t matter what you say here and now, because you and I, we don’t lie.”  Rick pulls his fingers free from Daryl’s mouth with an audible pop, wet saliva brushes his navel as Rick unbuttons Daryl’s pants, and then that hand is fisting down Daryl’s length, squeezing tight and rolling his thumb over the flared gland.  Daryl convulses, tries to curl forward, tries to wrap himself around that firm pleasure.  “Are you a size-ist?” Rick enquires, smiling faintly, just to mess with Daryl’s rhythm.  “Don’t lie to me,” Rick reminds, and jacks him, tortuously slow, skin catching, not enough spit on his fingers to ease the passage.  “I could fit my hand inside you, if you want.”  Daryl’s eyes snap open, he pants, mouth slack - so Rick can kiss him sloppily, fit his tongue inside and lick against his teeth.  His fist rides up, from the base of Daryl’s dick to the crown of his head, his thumb rolls over the top, smearing pre-come.  “Who takes care of you?” he whispers, and dips his thumb inward, the half-crescent of his nail penetrating Daryl’s cock, pushing against the most minuscule of openings.  “Huh?”

Daryl’s hips snap upward, he warbles out a response.  It could be boy, or it could be king, it could be leader or my north star, it could be daddy; it could be all of those things, existing side by side and interchangeable, but Daryl starts at the beginning, because that’s where acceptance should have been and was never found - he could have said Rick, because Rick means everything to him – and he might be a degenerate, but Rick touches him with assurance, like someone cherished.

Rick presses against him, chest to chest, thumb grinding hard, fingers curling; his thighs squeeze around Daryl’s legs like a cage.  “You’re so good, you’re so perfect,” he praises.  “Come for me.  Daryl, I’m telling you to come.”  And he strokes through the wetness flooding his hand, strokes through the shudders and the groans, those small sounds Daryl can’t contain, Rick strokes him until it’s a raw scrape of nerve-endings and Daryl’s juddering for different reasons entirely.  “Mine,” Rick says, avarice right.  “You’re my boy.”

**Author's Note:**

> written for the tumblr prompt: daddy kink  
> tried, but more likely it turned into kink-fail, feedback is appreciated if you have half a second to spare, or better yet, further prompts because I'll try my hand at anything….bar mpreg


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